Urge Gov. Huntsman to veto EnergySolutions Bill

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A KSL/Deseret News poll finds 78% of Utahns oppose SB 155, with 66% opposing it strongly. Yet over 70% of the Legislature voted for it, and over 70% received EnergySolutions campaign contributions.


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Gov. Huntsman has until tomorrow to veto Senate Bill 155, or it becomes law. Hundreds of calls have poured in to this office, but he's yet to make a decision.1
 
Please take a minute to call Gov. Huntsman today at (801) 538-1000 and leave a message asking him to veto SB 155.
 
Then, if Gov. Huntsman does veto the bill, join us on Capitol Hill for the final day of the session: Wednesday, February 28th. We're holding a citizen lobby day all day long from 9:00am-Midnight to urge our legislators to do their jobs and not exempt themselves from having oversight over nuclear waste expansions at EnergySolutions. More details to follow, but let us know if you can make it.
 
If you can't make it on the last day, make sure to contact your senator and representative and ask them to support the Governor's veto of SB 155. You can find your state legislators here: http://www.le.state.ut.us/maps/amap.html.
To see how they voted, follow these links:
 
Gov. Huntsman has said about SB 155: "I want to make sure there are no backdoors in terms of volumes of waste [and] in terms of hotter waste."2
 
Here are three ways SB 155 opens a backdoor for EnergySolutions for both hotter nuclear waste and massive expansions of nuclear waste without oversight from our state's elected leaders. Given the public opposition to this bill, and the backdoors it will open, we feel Gov. Huntsman has ample reason to veto SB 155:
 
1) SB 155 allows EnergySolutions to dump as much nuclear waste on its current site as state regulators will allow without future oversight from the Legislature or the Governor.
 
Under current law, when EnergySolutions--the largest commercial nuclear waste dump in America--wants to expand by 50% or more of its original size, it needs approval from the Legislature and Governor to do so. SB 155 exempts EnergySolutions from that requirement. That means that no Governor or legislator will ever be able to weigh in on a future expansion at EnergySolutions' current site, no matter how much nuclear waste the company requests to dump in Utah. So while 80 feet is the requested disposal height now, that could become 160 feet or 300 feet in the future. The only limit is what state regulators will allow.
 
The 50% requirement is in the law, it is in the bill, and it has been known to all for the past 17 years.
 
2) If the current ban on hotter nuclear waste were ever overturned by the Legislature, SB 155 would allow hotter nuclear waste to be dumped at EnergySolutions' current site without approval from the Legislature or Governor.

Hotter nuclear waste is currently banned from being dumped in Utah. But if this ban were overturned by the Legislature, SB 155 would allow EnergySolutions to dump hotter nuclear waste at their current site with only the approval of state regulators, who have already approved it in the past. Why is this the case? SB 155 exempts EnergySolutions from having to get legislative and gubernatorial approval for any future license application or license amendment on Section 32 (the square-mile it currently operates), such as a request to dump hotter nuclear waste in our state.

Is it unreasonable to think that the ban on hotter nuclear waste could be overturned? We only need to look to another state where EnergySolutions operates to see what could happen. In 2000, because of public pressure, South Carolina passed a law closing its commercial nuclear waste facility to all but three states. But things have suddenly changed since EnergySolutions gained control of the waste site last year. Already, EnergySolutions has convinced no less than 30 state representatives to co-sponsor a bill in the South Carolina State Legislature to keep the waste site open to the nation until 2023.  If EnergySolutions can exert that kind of influence in less than a year, who's to say what could happen in Utah, where the company has operated for two decades?

3) SB 155 removes the Governor's ultimate say on the issue of hotter nuclear waste and would allow such waste to be dumped in Utah even if the Governor says No.
 
Even if Governor Huntsman vetoed a bill that would overturn the ban on hotter nuclear waste, the Legislature could override that veto with a two-thirds majority. So while under current law, hotter nuclear waste would need to be approved by both the Legislature and the Governor, if the ban were overturned, SB 155 would allow hotter nuclear waste to be dumped at EnergySolutions' current site (Section 32), even if Gov. Huntsman said No.
 
Gov. Huntsman has positioned himself as a backstop to more and hotter nuclear waste being dumped in Utah. This is a role the vast majority of Utahns admire and respect.
 
Please call Gov. Huntsman today and ask him to veto SB 155 and maintain his important and popular role as backstop. The majority of the Legislature may want to do EnergySolutions' bidding, but at least we have a Governor who strives to listen to the people. Let's make sure he hears the call to veto SB 155.
 
2 ibid.

 


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